“AI Guardian of Endangered Species”guards animals

[Photo: IFAW]

With internet technology rapidly evolving, the illegal(非法 fēifǎ) wildlife(野生动物 yěshēng dòngwù) trade(贸易 màoyì) has been shifting from offline(线下 xiànxià) to online(线上 xiànshàng) platforms for years. However, as platform providers strengthen their efforts to regulate wildlife cybercrime, sellers have become more vigilant and are constantly exploring new ways to avoid(避免 bìmiǎn) detection(检测 jiǎncè), including transitioning from using code words to images, short videos, and live- streaming to convey the wildlife products they sell(售卖 shòumài). For instance, in 2019 during a one-month in-depth patrolling of a popular social media app in China, IFAW found that 49% of the 6,396 illegal wildlife advertisements only rely on product pictures and the text information does not contain any key information about the species.

AI Guardian helped identify illegal wildlife products pictures. [Photo: IFAW]

Recognized the need to use new technologies to address the increasingly various ways in which suspected illegal traders were trying to avoid detection, the International Fund for Animal Welfare(IFAW) and Baidu launched an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tool to identify(识别 shíbié) images of endangered wildlife products traded online. Named "AI Guardian(守护 shǒuhù) of Endangered Species", this tool currently has a 75% accuracy rate for recognizing images of elephant ivory, tiger canine teeth, skin, claws and pangolin scale and claws. During the test period, the AI Guardian helped recognize 3348 illegal wildlife products pictures from about 250,000 picture messages from different Chinese online platforms.

重点词汇 Key Word:

守护<动词 v.> guard; watch

E.g. Tā de fùmǔ shǒuhù zài tā chuáng biān.

他的父母守护在他床边。

His parents kept a vigil by his bedside.

Dāng nǐ yǒule yīgè mèngxiǎng, nǐ jiù yào qù shǒuhù tā.

当你有了一个梦想,你就要去守护它。

You got a dream, you gotta protect it.